Marc's Voice
Home LANs + Broadband + Devices

Here's one kind of a Multimedia Conversation

This is how it started....I created a series of posts related to various AOL T-W issues.  These posts prompted responses, counter arguments and related statements from several different bloggers.

Each point and counter-point can now be revisted - with viewers adding their own synopsis, opinions and counter-points - at anytime.  Anyone can come into a 'conversation' - at any point in the conversatiin - at any time.

But what makes it a 'multimedia conversation?'

HHhhhhmmm - let's see.......

It started off with:  The Travails of AOL  

Then, when the AT&T Comcast deal was first announced - I noted it's significance:

Woe! - Here we go! 

This is where I tried to explain that 'now that AOL was thinking of themselves as some new age HBO' that was a good thing.  That once they focused on creating cool stuff - they would.

However Doc Searls and Kevin Werbach  saw it differently. Significantly (I felt at the time) they BOTH complained that AOL couldn't produce unique content - and that it was all a sham.

I then wrote them both an open letter:

Dear Doc & Kevin - pointing out why I thought the new $38 a head bounty - per month was incredibly significant and that AOL was changing their underlying business model (at least when it comes to customers and cable modems.)

...at which point, Doc retorted, after I said we should all celebrate that AOL was changing their biz model, "But only for the faithful. I'm glad Marc is one of them" 

This of course prompted me (I'm not one for laying back and not expressing my opinions or feelings) to send this 'back at him':

Back at cha

Then I did something on the David Colburn witch hunt (the scapegoat du jour - at the time) (I was actually interviewed for the Wall St. Journal version of this story - but I can't link to it.) - which I called:

Hey! - I know this guy! 

And then a post on Kevin Conroy and his efforts: AOL gets 'jiggy wit it' (this is where the Hollywood executive gets 'down wit' some homeboy rap artist - and they promote the kid's music album with webcasted interviews and rock videos (wow I guess that means AOL T-W has figured out how to use the Internet!

And then AOL starts to get it together - slowly (which was the first mention of Lisa Hook and the new AOL Broadband unit.)  This is significant in our lives - as we were doing work for AOL and....

Then I answered a question Dave Winer coined which was "But what does that have to do with AOL? I must be missing something?":

At which point I said: OK - I'll answer your question - where I tried to explain to Dave that no one has ever been able to figure out what Interactive TV is - and now AOL is within inches of doing that......

and when Kevin Werbach asked about Ted Leonsis' role, I answered with:

and then when Dave and others seemed to grok it, with his "If I were King of AOL" I responded with:

Here's what I was trying to get at yesterday - trying to pull it all together

At which point I then came up with a trilogy of posts:

Great article on Lisa Hook and AOL Broadband - on Lisa Hook's coming out... and the new AOL Broadband unit. The NY Times really hit it on the head!

Witch hunts, inaccuracies and the lies they tell - on everyone going after Steve Case, some great quotes from Miller and Hook - and how the media distorts everything - to say the least

OK - 3 in a row - what should AOL T-W do? - where I finally get to talk about the power behind the throne - my friend - Miles Gilburne. I even show some photos of Miles and and his wife Nina. They're currently involved in In2Books - a non-profit children's litearcy organization

And just so that we remember that RoadRunner is STILL part of AOL T-W - here's a bit on RoadRunner and Rhapsody.

Postscript (and I ain't talking about no Adobe font technology!)

This on-line document is an attempt at showing what a multimedia conversation - might look like.

It would enable others to dive into the conversation, leave their own 2 cents and link live to conversation participants (original ones or new ones!)

Needless to say - it's not all done yet, but hopefully you can imagine how cool this will be. And it's just a first mockup. More coming.

- IM - click on someone's face - attempt to link to them - Chat if multiple people wanna talk to each other at the same time
- mechanism for enabling others to leave 'comments'
- better audio and some sort of video blogging
- 2 way links - that connect into others commentary, blog, essays, etc.
- transclusion of entire reference docs - rather than traditional web linking
- trackback, notification of similar posts, some connection to others - to keep the conversation going....